 A household message to start with all those participating through Webex today, please post any questions you may have through the chat. Now, the topic of today's debate will be, as I mentioned, the state of democracy in Europe report, which is part of international ideas by annual flagship study, which reviews the state of democracy over the course of 2020 and 2021. And we go back to all the way in 1975 and then have counted to now. So we see how democracy has developed over those decades. Now, the global report that shows for 165 countries in the world, how democracy is fairing was published just a few weeks ago and coincidentally was mentioned by President Joe Biden at the summit for democracy just last week. Today, we're going to zoom into Europe and the state of democracy in Europe, though, and we have a great lineup of speakers that are very intimately familiar with the state of democracy in Europe themselves. We'll be hearing a keynote by Vera Yorva, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency. We have the report presentation itself by my colleague Nana Kalandadze, and then we have a high level debate between preeminent democracy supporters, Adam Bodner, Poland's seventh ombudsman and currently professor at the SPWS University and Marta Pardavi, the co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee. So we look forward to today's debate. We have about an hour and we're going to kick ourselves off with an opening word of welcome by Ambassador Hannah Lehtinen, the Ambassador of Finland to the EU's Political and Security Committee. And Finland coincidentally is the co-chair, incoming co-chair of International Idea in 2022. So very good timing to hear from Finland. Ambassador Hannah Lehtinen, the floor is yours. Thank you, Sam, and it's a really great honour to be here and to be open to this important launching event and also a great pleasure to be here among all of us. So looking forward to this debate. So indeed, as you said, well, Finland is one of the founding members of the idea and for the next 12 months we will co-chair the International Idea with Canada and Cape Verde. And this is very important for us because in our international democracy policy we emphasise things like rights of women, the role of civil society and inter-linguages, inter-linguages, democracy, the role of law and human rights. So we think that the idea is indeed a major channel for Finland to promote these values worldwide and also in preparing for the year of action following the last week's summit for democracy, which was already mentioned by you, Sam. So we think indeed that it is fair to say that since its founding in 1995 the International Idea has developed into one of the leading inter-governmental organisations in advancing democracy worldwide. And indeed one of the strengths is the capacity to operate both locally, regionally and globally and democracy as we know in order to be sustainable and resilient shall be realised at all these levels. So we are very grateful for you that for your proactive work at European and EU level also here in Brussels. Well, a couple of words over the report. We think that the value of the report is in its regions of data and the evidence it provides for us and it also gives us some important value for quality recommendations. And unfortunately as we will hear, I'm sure the report confirms the continuing decline in democracy already indicated by other studies and indices. And these development concerns all continents, including Europe. And although of course Europe still remains one of the most democratic regions in the world. But as the report shows and I quote, a majority of Europe's established democracies have seen their democratic policies stagnate rather than improve. Some have experienced erosion of demographic processes and fundamental rights and several others have deteriorated to the point where they can hardly be qualified as democracies. End of quote. So this means that even some EU member states are in the category of tax sliding democracies with their democratic freedoms where democratic freedoms are threatened. And this is of course even more even more worrying because the European Union has played and of course continue to play a key role in promoting democracy, human rights and the rule of law worldwide. So as we know, the EU is committed to advocate its basic values. And over the past few years, the EU has also stepped up its efforts to support fragile democracies and strengthen the resilience of established democracies to new challenges. And I'm sure we will hear more of this from commissioners. So a short publicity spot, if you allow, in 2019 under the Finnish presidency of the EU, the Council adopted conclusions on democracy. And these have been since then followed up by various action plans and indeed commitment to the principles of leave no one behind and non-discrimination that the EU's work on democracy and human rights. So to conclude, the global state of democracy ranks Finland as a high performing democracy together to 12 other European democracy. We have, however, identified ourselves several challenges to all the democratic and democratic development. And we know also we are well aware that democracy doesn't happen by accident. You have to work for it. And we have now through our national democratic program 2025. We aim to further strengthen our democratic system from representation participation from transparency to inclusion. So I think this is this is how I want to conclude this opening remarks. For us, this is a good reason to remember and recognize that democracy is never complete. Well, thank you Ambassador Lehtinen for these introductory words, but also for pointing at two important things. One is that no democracy is perfect, even high performing ones like Finland and many other countries in the EU. And the second point is that you draw the link between the internal and the external. So if the EU wants to be a shining light globally, it has to show at home that its democracies function as well. Thank you for those two opening messages. We're now going to continue to Vera Jurova, the Vice President of the European Commission for Values and Transparency, who has in fact been championing discussions on upholding democracy and the rule of law in Europe for many years. In all the traditional areas like protecting judges and the media, but also importantly by protecting all the innovations in democracy. Online political advertising, cybersecurity in elections and international ideas have been fortunate enough to work very closely with her team and the European Commission on these topics. So we're very privileged to have you, Commissioner, and the floor is yours for a keynote address. Thank you very much, Sam. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues. I want to thank you for inviting me to your event and first let me thank to the Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance for the 2021 report on the state of democracy in Europe. Believe me, it's important reading for me, inspirative, alarming and warning. You said some that I am championing the debates. I would really like to be the championing the actions, but the actions have to be well designed, well thought through because we need to work together to protect democracy and elections better in Europe. And also keep the position of the continent which leads as an example for others. And as the European Vice President for values, I can tell you I would like to hand over Europe to my successor in a better shape than when I started. And this will be the work for many, many partners. It cannot be just for the Commission. And I think today we have a symbolic date because exactly 40 years ago, the Martial Law was imposed in Poland and we must take a moment to remember the sacrifices made to secure the freedoms we enjoy today. But also to reflect that the road which brought us here was neither straight nor leading in one direction only. And your report illustrates this point and the picture it paints offers a really sobering reminder of our duty to be vigilant and to exert ourselves in the defence of our hard-won values. In other words, I would say that how I feel complacency is the system of arrogance here. And I know it sounds strong, but when we became complacent, we became convinced that democracy and fundamental rights and free elections will enjoy some kind of automaticism that we do not need to do anything. It was a fatal mistake and we have to mobilise all the forces, especially now when we are going through a very demanding time through the COVID crisis. We have to do much more to give the people the assurance that democracy delivers sufficient security, sufficient reasonable prosperity and economic ability to survive the crisis and also the feeling that they have the possibility to enjoy justice. Because these are things which the people, especially now in COVID time, are announcing to us, we don't feel that we are secure, that we can have access to justice and many other things. This is a big warning for the Democrats because those who will offer easy solutions are usually the populists who do not have sufficient responsibility and they only want to be winning the elections and then after the elections they really offer solutions which are not feasible but which only look and sound good. So I think that this is a very, very strong call for the action. The Commission tries to do its part of the job. A year ago, I announced the Commission's European Democracy Action Plan to set out the Commission's response to the challenges confronting democracies in Europe. And again, challenges which only intensified in the pandemic. We have a plan to protect free and fair elections and stronger democratic participation to support free and independent media and counter disinformation. This is what we put into the European Democracy Action Plan as a concrete set of actions for the three or four years. So now we are in full speed implementing or designing the concrete actions for protecting of the elections. We are doing a lot of things but I want to emphasize one which is the regulation on transparency and targeting of political advertising as part of measures aimed at protecting election integrity and open democratic debate. In digital era we see a lot of good things for the people but a lot of bad things where also we see the possibility, easy, easy possibility and cheap possibility to influence elections, to manipulate the public opinion, to navigate the citizens through hidden marketing, political marketing to the elections and to cast their vote in not very autonomous and free way. And here I think that it's high time that we are coming with the regulation, we want more transparency, we want the people to understand that they are reading the political content which aims to influence their electoral choices. We want to strengthen what we already have in GDPR that we have a set of sensitive data which must not be used against the people and this is race, this is religion, this is their political views expressed in their digital communication and this is, I have mentioned race, I have mentioned religion, since simply sensitive data which is in GDPR we say that this kind of data must not be used, must not be used for micro targeting for the political advertising. I think this is very important. So this is the regulation which complements the Digital Services Act because I am limited as of time I think I will continue by saying that we also need to decrease the impact of this information. We are not introducing any kind of censorship. It would go against sharply against my conviction that we have to protect the freedom of speech in Europe. And at the same time I have to explain that we are working on the code of practice which should decrease the impact of this information on the society by more fact checking, by cutting the disinformers of the big financial benefit because this information sells better than the boring truth. This is the set reality of these days. So the code of practice will be ready after the new year and I hope we will have a good mechanism to decrease the impact of this information without censoring. The protection of media, pluralism and independence. Again, very important field, new field for the commission. We will propose the media freedom act next year, which should protect better the media, pluralism and freedom. Protect the media against politicization, against economic pressures, against the measures and concentration which in fact monopolize the information flow. Simply said, when we see media outlets disappearing, this is not a good sign also for the freedom of speech. And these different threats and risks are reflected very well in our rule of law report which we issued last this year in July. We will have another report next year in summer and I think that we have to protect media more because the crisis in media landscape is really, really shocking. So this is all we have to do with what we are doing. As you say, see I am myself not complacent. I am not satisfied by introducing all these new measures. We are showing and proving that we feel a very strong sense of responsibility for the state of democracy and state of fundamental rights in Europe. Also by funding, I will not go into details. We have a lot of new financial opportunities, the equality program and many others. Also the creative Europe is the envelope for the media. We also have several new strategies to protect the people who need protection in the union of equality. So a lot of things where I really would like to invite you all for cooperation. I am ready to do the same. I want to say again for the report because this report is encouraging, is varying because it includes a lot of alerting information. But also it's encouraging for me that we can join forces. I am also really glad and here I will be a little bit personal. I'm glad that I have such great allies in our effort like in the International Institute of Democracy. But also Adam Bodnar for instance or Marta Padravi who are speaking today, also many others. We need more courage. We need more visibility of what we are doing. We need more tangible results because this is not about war, this is really about the action. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for these inspiring words. I think you started off with the right tone by saying it's not just analysis but action that will make the difference. If I may ask you one follow up question, it's really about that action. We see that in spite of all the doom and gloom that we also see and found in this report, that there may also be a momentum for investing more in democracy. There was the summit for democracy just last week. Commissioner Uroba, do you feel that that momentum can also be used in the EU? Do we face a renewed momentum for democratic strengthening? Do you see those opportunities arising at the moment? I feel a lot of hope that we do not have a crowd in Europe that we have citizens who enjoy their rights. And especially the young people, they are enjoying their rights and freedoms without realizing that they have them because they don't know anything else. And more and more I hear from especially the young generation that they started to be aware that they might lose these important parameters of their, I think, good life in Europe, good address, which Europe has been. So this is what I see very strongly now in the debates which we are up and running under the conference on the future of Europe. A lot of young people are announcing to us, yes, we want democracy to be more protected. We need more of participatory democracy. We want more transparency of what the political sphere is doing because we want to participate as informed citizens. There are a lot of inspirative ideas we are now gaining through the conference of the future of Europe. And I really value this exercise because what we wanted is coming through that the people who do not belong to the traditional bubble of a kind of close political structures. The people who in fact do not have anything in common with real politics, they are telling us their ideas. And it's really a big activity and I am very nicely surprised. But at the same time I feel a really strong commitment when I see that the values, democracy, rule of law and security are far the biggest topic in this white and broad debate. Only second is the climate change. It shows that the people care because if we have only the crowd of easy to manipulate crowd, we will lose the battle. And I wanted to be positive and I hope I managed. I certainly did. At the one hand being alarming, because we are in a very dire position for democracy at the moment but also for shedding that light and raising the hopes when you pointed at the younger generations. Thank you very much commissioner you are very fortunate to have had you with us. Thank you. That's perfect. Thank you. Please stay with us. On to the report itself. The reason for organizing this event and we're going to listen to some of the findings of the report by my colleague Nana Kalandadze. Nana is the program manager for Europe of international idea and in fact the author of this report. Nana Kalandadze has worked on the topic of democracy in Europe since the early 2000s in different capacities, not just an international idea, but also, for instance, that OSE odir in Warsaw. And she has done so by focusing on a dozen or more European countries and beyond as well. So I'd like to invite Nana to share the key findings of the report, the state of democracy in Europe. Thank you, Sam. Can you hear me well? Can you hear me? Yeah, yeah, go ahead. So greetings to all our participants and to our distinguished panelists and thank you for this opportunity to present the findings of our state of democracy in Europe report 2021. If you could please start sharing the slides. Yeah. So we, of course, encourage you to read the full report of this one will be only a brief snapshot of what is otherwise a detailed and a new picture. And by the way, let me also share my deep thanks to our entire team. I'm indeed a lead writer of this report, but it has been contributed to and benefited from a large group of co-authors. And we have received excellent peer reviews from our peers and partners. So I'll review developments and what they have meant for various democratic attributes in various EU countries with some focus on East Central Europe, of course. And then we'll leave our distinguished panel to delve into the situation in the subject and more closely. Next slide, please. So, yeah, if you can move to the next slide. Yes, sorry, some technical issue. Sorry. So a few words about the conception of democracy that underpins our assessment framework on this slide here you see. We measure a country's democratic performance along the five key attributes, which we consider essential to democratic functioning. These include representative government, fundamental rights, checks on government, impartial administration and participatory engagement. And as you can see, each of these attributes have their related sub attributes that are measured separately according to the individual indicators, dozens of indicators that flow into these measures. Next slide. Now, on to the findings. Well, very briefly first, if there is a short way to summarize this picture or overall picture, it would be that we've seen authoritarian tendencies of varying degrees have gained momentum across the globe and in Europe. At the same time, we've seen that democracy has been resilient and this difficult pandemic strike and period has pointed to many critical, valuable lessons and opportunities for for democratic strengthening. Now, so what is Europe's current performance here on the slide you have a wider European region, including the partnership countries and Russia and Turkey. Overall, why the Europe has 39 democracies, three hybrid regimes and two authoritarian states. Now, I will not spell out all 39 democracies, but for some more clarity, the three hybrid regimes that we currently have are unfortunately joined by Serbia, which has rolled back into this group in 2020. And Russia and Turkey, of course, that have continued to deepen their authoritarian tendencies and the regimes. And then the two authoritarian states are Azerbaijan and Belarus. Now, within Europe's democracies, 13 are high performing democracies, 23 are mid performing and three are weak democracies. And comparatively, Europe has the highest percentage of democracies compared to any region, as well as the highest number of high performing democracies that's an important, of course, element to consider. Nevertheless, looking more inwards and more critically at what are the key vulnerabilities within Europe. And we can assert that that vulnerability is a rest with the regions 23 meet performing democracies that have over the past decade failed to strengthen failed to consolidate and move to the high performing group. And therefore, of course, leaving the door open to further erosion back sliding consolidation. Next slide please. So, on this map here, you see the two types of democratic declines that we've seen in in in Europe, and this is assuming on to the EU as such. Now, in blue color, you have 11 EU member states where according to our data, at least one democratic attribute has declined over the past 5 to 10 years. These we call eroding democracies where to which we refer to those that have experienced statistically significant declines, at least, at least on one democratic attribute. Importantly, though, these some of these countries continue to be high performing democracies. No, underscoring the fact that even the high performing democracies can undergo certain erosion some slides some more deeper. And that warrants attention and further action to protect from further worsening. I will perhaps go into more detail later on if there are questions about which of these have have undergone. What types of erosions and what exactly what what have been the aspects. Now, moving on to the red color in red, you see backsliding democracies, those that have experienced gradual and significant weakening of checks on government and civil liberties. So, I need the two best predictors, according to our model of the democratic backsliding. Our executive action to weaken checks on government as well as weakening and attacks against fundamental rights backsliding. Unfortunately, as we have seen for now, about a decade has affected and continued in Poland and Hungary. So, as unfortunately has now affected Slovenia, which we now record as another third backsliding country within the EU, where the deterioration has been noted since 2019 or 2020. Next slide. Now, looking at the pandemic period particularly and then the more general global context Europe as a whole fair comparatively well in terms of violations in terms of the democracy and human rights principles that were recording during the COVID-19 response in the field of responses from from the government. Nevertheless, some of the key concerns or violations related to this period relate to, for example, elections or what we call clean elections attribute. Particularly a political campaigning during the pandemic and freedom of political parties to do so. Imposition of limitations on fundamental rights and particularly the proportionality and some of the legality of some of these limitations, as well as effective parliament. The parliament's ability to implement effective oversight of the executive action. While no doubt, many governments continue to manage the pandemic while uphold the condimental principles of rule of law and human rights, some other incumbents in the region and particularly in Central Europe continue to resort to illiberal and authoritarian approaches to governance, the demonization of independent civic groups, the undermining of the independence of the media and obtaining electoral benefits in some cases. This unfortunately particularly related to Serbia in the past year to some extent Poland, Hungary as well as to the places outside the EU, but within the wider Europe region. Next, please. Now, on this map you see civic space in Europe and measure of civic space which based on freedom of expression, association and assembly. Of course, needless to say that shrinking of shrinking of civic space is has been a very emblematic nature of the of the threats of democracy in the Central Europe. So closing down of civic space, shutting off dissenting voices and the press NGOs and in the academia particular concern is the declines that we see on this map. In East Central Europe, dangerous practices lately ranged from uncooperative attitudes by state officials towards journalists harassment and threats made to media outlets and human rights activists. This of course risks further dividing democratic performance between Eastern and Western Europe and obviously threatens the idea of Europe, whole and free. Next slide. Now, on this map here you see a measure of effective parliament. The pandemic has showcased the importance of parliament really in sustaining democratic governance models. As many executive governments as we know rush to invoke emergency powers, some legislatures impressively rose to the task of exercising proactive oversight. However, in places where ruling parties had already solidified their control of the legislature, some parliaments remained muted or even self divested and resigned from systematic and rigorous oversight of the executive action. This experience exactly points to the opportunity that there is to strengthen the culture and practice of parliamentary oversight to build more resilient democratic systems that will function effectively both during the ordinary times and during emergencies. Now, next slide please. Last but not least. If you can go to the next slide. Yes, so this action during the pandemic now citizens as we know in all parts of Europe have come out in remarkable numbers to protest for various causes. If the pandemic is thought one thing to governments is that democracies can only function effectively when citizens have trust into the process and feel that their voices have been heard. We know that protests matter, especially in the in the middle long term, because they direct attention towards injustice or particular issue of a public interest. Force a conversation about that issue and change the people that participate into activists. Promote bonding between participants, which influences society as a whole. One of one expert actually refers to protest as a gateway drive between casual participation and lifelong activism. Now, we zooming into the sub region on Eastern Central Europe. We know that in Poland, for example, over the past two years, activists use information and communication technologies extensively to mobilize protest against various. The clients are developments in Slovenia. Protesters used innovative ways such as bike process multiple smaller group staging. Walking process to avoid distancing requirements banners hung from windows and balconies and an online protest concert to voice concerns against the degradation of democracy as they called it. Next slide. Now, I'll leave our panelists to present the situation in Poland and Hungary in more detail, but let me mention here some very key features of the situation in Slovenia. We're seeing trends. We're seeing in 2020 across a number of key sub attributes, particularly with critical media organizations and independent oversight bodies coming under pressure, leading government officials engaging in undermining critical media outlets and academia, attempted to interfere with independent oversight institutions and engaged nationalistic and anti LGBTQI discourse. Next slide. Now, summarizing the particular picture in the Central Europe. So we've said that after rapid progress in the 1990s, Democratic deepening in the Central Europe has tall and in some cases has worsened, of course. Particularly the state of two key aspects of democratic vitality, civil liberties and fundamental rights in many of Eastern Europe's countries, where at the end of 2020 comparable to when they were when they joined the European Union. So this therefore leads us to suggest that the 2010s have been a decade of missed opportunity for democratic consolidation in the sub region. Moreover, this decline creates a deep and dangerous cleavage and the use internal fundamental consensus on liberal democratic values and highlights the need for urgent and effective tools to promptly address democratic backsliding within the EU. Next slide. Now, the real challenge we have ahead of us, how do we turn the ship and round and avoid complacency and inaction? What do we need to better protect democracy? We feel three directions are essential, deliver better, equally and sustainably, rebuild institutions to protect fundamental rights and rule of law, and prevent democratic threats, notably through investment in civic education, democracy education and independent media. We also feel that this needs to be done with sense of urgency and humility, a better understanding of the threats and increased resources to civic actors to do their work. Now, more substantive recommendations are in our report and we encourage all of you to look at those and give us feedback. Thank you very much. Well, thank you, Nana Kalandatze. Indeed, please visit the report and all its data at idea.in-slash-g-s-o-d-slash-Europe. Well, on to the central part of this event, the high level discussion between our two eminent discussants, Dr. Adam Butler and Marta Bardavi. Both will start with a brief opening statement to reflect on the report and to give their views on the state of democracy in Europe. I suppose any questions you may have as a listener through the chat. But we're going to start with Adam Bodner. Adam is Poland's seventh ombudsman or commissioner for human rights. He was back in 2015 elected by the Polish parliament with an approval of a few dozen different NGOs for a five-year term, which he ended earlier this year. And in those years, he has fought back against all forms of democratic backsliding to the point that he became one of the few remaining independent institutions to do so. While his country was facing democratic erosion throughout. And he won a whole host of prizes to celebrate his work, including the refter prize in 2018 and the rule of law award of the World Justice Project in 2019. He is currently a professor at SWPS University and Adam will give his reflections on the report and the state of democracy in Europe. Adam, the floor is yours. Thank you some for organizing this webinar and thank you to the international idea for making it happen for the preparation of the whole report. I would like just to say three things. First thing I think the date of the seminar is particularly important because we have we are just celebrating in Poland. As a madam commissioner said the 40th anniversary of the martial law in Poland. And this is important date for us because it was one of the most painful moments in the history of Poland when rights were heavily violated where the people were killed where people, a couple of thousands people were were jailed. And, and basically we should have the memory about the past in order to understand why current threats are so are so demanding and why they are so dangerous to our future to the democratic future of Poland. Let's go democratic. Second, I would like to mention that just last week on 10th of December we had not only the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also on 10th of December there was a funeral of a great Czech dissident pet. who was a great fighter, not only for freedom, but also for equality and brotherhood. And I think it is important because when we are talking about this idea that democracy should deliver as Nana has said that it should deliver in equitable and sustainable way. I think it is one of those reasons of a crisis that not always people do feel that the democratic system is important to them that basically provides for the protection but not only of civil and political rights but also social rights. And that is the reason why the populist parties are winning why they are so, so important in them in the public discourse. And the third point I wanted to say is, of course, you know, I can only agree with that with conclusions concerning Poland, we are backsliding, we are becoming a weak democracy, or maybe even you know the question is whether we are still democracy right now we are living in the in the period when the judicial review does not operate we have just finished the so called state of democracy and the Polish state of emergency at the Polish Belarusian border but basically this state has been prolonged with some kind of a law that is not subject of review by the constitutional court is not operating in a full fashion, but I would like just to underline one thing in this context that sometimes you know when I talk to people they say, you see the situation Poland it is just a part of the bigger trend internationally. Now, if you look into the report by the international idea, you see that there are three countries single out that of course one may say that this, let's say, authoritarian disease is spreading. But it does not mean that it is spreading to countries that are full fledged democracies that you have tons of countries in which democracy is in a pretty good shape. You have just, you know, elections coming one after the other, which are resolved in a democratic fashion. So, so simply, you shouldn't present a situation in Poland as a kind of an excuse, like, oh, you know, it is just a part of a bigger trend. We have a problem and it is the role of the European Union to support us in in resolution of this problem because it seems to me that Polish civil society judges a democracy fighters opposition by parties are strong enough to fight for the democracy and therefore the continuation of democratic standards in Poland. Thank you very much. Thank you, Adam, for sending the scene. We're going to continue with Marta Pardavi now. Marta is the co-chair of the Hungarian Helsinki Committee at leading human rights NGO in Budapest and Marta has fought back against the threats to the role of law and civil society space in Hungary and in the EU for for many, many years. She's also invested in strengthening alliances between human rights defenders in the EU so that it's not just her country, but countries like Hungary or in similar situations that can unite forces. Like Adam, she earned different rewards for her work in 2018. She won the William D disable human rights award. And the year after she won the civil rights defender of the year award. Marta, the floor is yours for your views on the report and the state of democracy in Europe. Thank you very much, Sam. It's a pleasure to be here and to talk about not only what is not working well but what is working well in Europe in democracy and it was very nice to read the report again. Last evening, I do see that there is quite a lot of hopeful signs in it, but I have to agree with Adam that indeed there are a couple of countries that stand out. Vice President Yureva talked about complacency and arrogance. And I would add a third notion here, which we need to fight back against very profoundly and this is cynicism. And the way to do that, my suggestion is to actually look at democracy and human rights as an instrument of hope. Not of illusion, but rather hope of a genuine belief that things can always get better if we put our minds and our actions to it. And so this genuine belief also needs to be, of course, matched with genuine action. But we certainly need to fight back against this kind of cynicism with action and beliefs. And I see the report describe these notions at various lengths. There are lots of takeaways that resonate for me and I'm sure many civil society defenders, human rights defenders in Europe. One is that the pandemic is not over, but we certainly can learn lessons from it already. And I think the report makes it very clear how we need to ensure that there is good oversight and accountability mechanisms everywhere. Now, in a democracy and a well functioning democracy, you have independent institutions and parliaments and courts and civil society that does this. In some countries, like in Poland and like in Hungary, some of these are really missing. They have been dismantled and eroded. And so the other actors, their role, I think, becomes even more pronounced. The media and civil society really need to do their work and they need to do it in a free manner with support from others. And I think this is the idea, this solidarity that also, of course, when Adam talked about the 40 years of anniversary of the Polish martial law, we should also talk about solidarity and not only within Poland, but across borders for people and ideas that were courageous enough to go against oppression. And we still need this, and we still have this in Europe, but we need to support this. And I think the EU has quite a big role to play in this. Now, another notion that I'd like to bring in here very much to the core of international ideas, as you talked about it, not a clean election attributes and those being at risk in some countries. Now, these are facts, but what can we do against them? And I think here, going back to the European Union's role, there is quite a lot to do within the EU itself. The report documents how election standards and practices have come under enormous stress during the pandemic. Many countries fared well. Some did not. And in order to keep public trust in elections and to keep a fair playing field, I think the EU also has to recognize that it has to act up, step up within the European Union itself. The report brings several examples. I think it would be time that the EU considers election observation missions within the EU itself through supporting the OSCE mechanisms in this regard. There is quite a lot the EU does to support elections and human rights outside the EU, but this internal external dimension should be synchronized. Just a few weeks, a few days ago, there was a 1.5 billion euro plan that the European Union will roll out in the next few years to support universal values, human rights, human rights defenders, democracy outside the EU. But we still know that despite some progress, there's a lot more to be done, not only in terms of funding, but in terms of strategies. And for the moment, my last contribution on this would be that as Commissioner Yurefa pointed out, there's a lot of strategies and action plans that are being rolled out in the EU, also in the field of rule of law and democracy. But what about civic space? Wouldn't it be time to see that civic value itself needs to be protected? And so my suggestion is to have a European strategy for civic space as part of our democratic fabric. Thank you, Marta. What I find fascinating in your contribution, Marta, and in Adam's is this call for action and really to resist the complacency that we say, well, certain countries are just bad behaviors. This is something that makes us complacent and makes us cynical. So both of you call for action and maybe that leads me to the first question for the discussion. Because indeed, a lot of people point to Hungary and Poland as almost the twins of democratic erosion. Do you feel that as an Applebaum also says in our latest book that democratic backsliding can really happen anywhere in Europe? Or do you think that there is a certain element in the slightly younger democracies in Central and Eastern Europe that make them more prone to democratic backsliding? Maybe Adam's starting with you. Thank you. I really admire this book by an Applebaum, Twilight of democracy. I read it with my students. And I think for sure she identifies some important general trends, which are the emergence of social media, uncontrollable polarization caused by social media. And this information that contributes to the creation of so-called cacophony of voices, that when you have that kind of a cacophony of different voices, opinions, statements, people simply do not know what is true, what is not. And they simply are eager to accept the vision of the world presented by some strongman. And basically that is what populists are using in order to present their vision of the world in order to get through that kind of cacophony. But I see here also another problem, which also refers to the International IDR Report, which is the protection of institutions. Please note that in that kind of a world, institutions such as courts are much more vulnerable and are weaker in terms of defending themselves when they are simply flooded with some fake argumentation or misinterpretation of judgments or undermining the credibility of judgments. And I think that these are processes that should be addressed everywhere. And sometimes when I talk about changes in Poland, I say, listen guys, all those good responses we are producing, especially how to defend the judiciary, they might be useful in other countries of the world. Because we try to develop methods, ways, argumentation, how courts should be protected. But I think that I think Central and Eastern Europe is a little bit more special than other countries, because first of all, we didn't have proper civic education after the transformation. So for the last 25, 30 years, we didn't invest enough of time into the civic education and shaping those civic awareness attitudes. Second, some of our institutions like constitutional courts were transplants from other countries, from Germany, from Austria, from France, and simply we didn't embed them into the fabric of the social structure and we didn't create enough of legitimacy of those institutions. And it is one of the reasons for problems that because there was lack of sufficient embeddedness, we couldn't, they were much more vulnerable to the pressure coming from populist governments. Thank you. Well, thank you, Adam. I think you pointed both issues, right? This is a universal threat, but certain countries have a history and you pointed to that importance of understanding the past. That makes them more prone to certain forms of erosion. Now, Marta, you've dedicated much of your career to not just fighting democratic erosion in Hungary, but also strengthening alliances between countries and Adam also pointed to that. How can countries learn from each other? Marta, do you feel that those bonds between democratic activists like yourselves, between countries, are currently strong enough? Or do we have to do more to create that international network so that people can exchange their lessons? Thank you for this question. We talked about the fall of the Berlin Wall in the 90s and the report spells it out that, in fact, Central Eastern Europe really has not made a huge advance from the early 90s in their protection of civil liberties. We also could think back to how strong alliances based on human rights protection existed in that region and also between other regions, too. And I really think that there is quite a lot already in place, but there's a lot more to do. I'm running a project which is called Recharging Advocacy for Rights in Europe, and that is meant to foster a sense of strong bonds and solidarity between human rights defenders and their organizations. But I really think that there a lot needs to be done. Similar initiatives need to build friendships and an understanding of the problems because that will also lead to learning from each other and joint action. If we have more people caring and speaking out, which is the essential idea, I think, of a vibrant civil society and a vibrant democracy, then certainly I think we have a lot of reason for optimism. When I talk with colleagues from Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria or Greece, for example, they are experiencing quite a lot of the issues that we're grappling with in Poland and Hungary. But it gives us each other strength that we can actually really overcome many of these together. Both of you have mentioned that beyond just the democracy activists, the human rights defenders themselves, there's an important role for the EU. Now, I'd like to ask you as a final statement, because unfortunately we're running out of time, to reflect on the role of the EU in strengthening democracy. I'm going to ask Adam to do so first before we end with Marta. Adam, go ahead. I think the European Union is playing right now the fundamental role, and I think this clash with the Polish government especially these days is extremely important because Poland simply is openly refusing to enforce judgments. And I would even say that this battle with Poland has reached another stage when the Minister of Justice is accusing the Court of Justice of corruption. You know, that is the latest interview made by Mr. Zbiziovro in the Financial Times about this, which is showing where are we now, where are we right now and how long that kind of a clash may last still. But I would like to add that the European Union in my opinion should not only use the existing legal instruments, legal and political instruments, because it is simply the existential threat to not only to Poland but also for the whole European Union, because European Union is based on values. But I would like just, I would like to add one more component to this, please note, just that just last week the Secretary General of the Council of Europe has started the procedure under the article 52 of the Statute of the Council of Europe concerning refusal by Poland to comply with judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. So we are at this stage when simply the Polish constitutional code is reaching similar verdicts as the Russian constitutional code. And in my opinion, this cooperation between two institutions, Council of Europe, European Union should be important. So one should not forget about the other and one and the other should use all the existing political and legal tools in order to address the situation in my country. Thank you. Thank you very much, Adam. I know you have to go. We're going to move on to Martha before we're going to close the event. Martha, go ahead. Thank you. Adam spoke about the importance of international organizations and court judgments also to be fully respected. I think there is one more which we haven't addressed here but it's of course always in the background nexus between the rising corruption and erosion of democracy and of human rights. I think it's, it would be important to look at corruption more in detail. The EU is going to be doing this and trying to find ways and those should be put to action to address this, but also the nexus between corruption and eroding democracy, eroding human rights protection. These issues will certainly be very present in the years to come. We need much better tools and also a better understanding between various actors who deal with this to address them. Thank you, Martha. That leads us to the end of this session. This has gone very rapidly, but that's also because of the richness of the debate and the high level of all speakers. I'm going to try and mention two takeaways. One is that I think all speakers from the opening words by the Ambassador of Finland, Commissioner Yurova, Nanna, Nandats and then Adam and Martha mentioned that as dire as the situation currently looks like for democracy globally but also in Europe, we should not be complacent. We should not accept that certain countries are simply bad behaviors. We should instead invest in action as the Commissioner said at the very beginning and that can be done through regulations and laws as the Commissioner is doing. It can be done through funds and all kinds of funding instruments that the EU is building up. But most importantly, this has to be done through activists, the creative ideas and the bold initiatives by people that work on a daily basis to defend democracy. And that is the only way in which we can make sure that democracy is being defended. Now, we also heard a number of positive messages that that is actually possible, that action exists among young people who are actually prioritizing democracy over other important things such as climate changes we heard from the Commissioner. And we see that a lot of people are taking to the streets are going online to have their say. That's a positive message that I'd like to end with. I'd like to thank all the presenters all the speakers and encourage all the listeners to visit and read the reported idea dot in slash gs od slash Europe. We're going to enter a year of action now that the first summit for democracy is over, leading up all the way to December 2022 when the second summit for democracy will be held. Please stay tuned for all events that international idea will be organizing throughout this year of action, and I look forward to having you all with us. Thanks very much and hope to see you soon. Thank you very much for the invitation. Thank you. Thank you. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much. Thank you.